


A Mongrel, Or A Pug

by notantihero



Series: The Spider and Her Pet Pug [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Doctor Ziegler plays matchmaking, F/F, Fluff and Crack, Tracer is a moron, Tracer please stop drop kicking people, Widomaker getting tight with the Overwatch girls, Widowmaker isn't happy, and the team therapist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-15 05:59:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7210781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notantihero/pseuds/notantihero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Widowmaker is convinced that Tracer is a moron and compares her with a pug.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Never the type to feel strongly (or at all) about anything in particular, Widowmaker doesn’t spend her time disliking or liking anyone (or anything). She keeps her room sparse – a bed, a bedside table, a lamp, a dresser, and the tarantula she calls Tarantula. Her personal life, she keeps ever sparser. Even when Overwatch’s rescued (their word, not hers) her and showed her pictures of Gerard and the old team back when she was known as Amelie and made her _remember_ , it was nothing more than an oh, so that’s how it is now. Oh, so that’s what’s for dinner. Oh, I ran out of milk. Merde. She feels more strongly when she finds that the local supermarket only sells instant coffee. Or when she misses a headshot.

And Tracer makes her miss. A lot.

Her heartbeat increases slightly, ever so slightly when she finds herself aiming wide, hitting a lamp post instead of a Talon grunt. His head, by her estimate, is at least the size of a prize winning pumpkin – which makes it even more _ridiculous_ that she’s missed a shot as easy as that.

With a sharp intake of air through her teeth, she hunkers down and once again peers down her scope. It’s a frenzy of explosions and colourful whizzes with the odd gorilla and dwarf here and there, but it doesn’t phase her. Talon lacks any subtlety (in fact, with her gone, their subtlety has dropped from one to the grand total of zero), so really, all the chaos is not the slightest bit distracting. She’s used to this. She doesn’t need to, but she takes another mouthful of air and holds her breath. Adjusts her scope to align with the head she’s just missed, readies her finger on the trigger and–

–and Tracer whizzes past, teleporting directly _in front of her_ before jumping the thirty feet down with a battle cry worthy of a Viking. Widowmaker watches with her approximation of horror (or a normal human being’s approximation of a raised eyebrow) as Tracer lands straight on Widowmaker’s target and _drop kicks_ him.

Pausing for a second, she exhales the breath she’s holding and pushes the trigger to convert her rifle back into an assault rifle. Grappling to the farthest building she can see, she decides that Tracer is a moron.

She’s going home to read a book.

* * *

She’s in the middle of the chapter about the economics of prostitution when she hears the knocking on the door.

“Come in,” she says, flipping to the next page. She already knows that it’s Ziegler from the distinctive pattern of her footsteps. Long stride, light patters for footsteps. Like someone who’s not used to being grounded. Like someone who’s never had her wings torn.

A moment later the door opens and Ziegler enters, looking odd with a lab coat and two plates of cake instead of the valkyrie suit and healing stick. What is it called in English? She can never remember. Foreign languages and late nights never really go together.

Ziegler gives her a wan smile. “May I?” she says, raising one of the plates up as a gesture for… something.

Widowmaker’s accommodation in Talon consists of a heavily guarded (but rather comfortable, nonetheless) cell where guests are to be shot within sight, so social courtesy is never quite her forte. Still, she remembers something from her days as Amelie and nods, scooting towards one edge of the bed to make room for the doctor.

Permission granted, Ziegler sits at the end end and hands Widowmaker one of the plates. Tiramisu.

“One of your favourites,” says Ziegler. She takes the fork from her plate and slices a small piece off. “At least, I hope I remember correctly.”

“It is,” Widowmaker says simply. She does the same and stabs the piece, putting it into her mouth. She slides the cake off the fork with her teeth as not to stain her lips. Sublime.

Talon gave her military rations. Overwatch gives her cakes. Gone are the days where she would drop into bakeries in the middle of an assassination for a piece of cake. For now, Overwatch is winning by a landslide. She likes cake.

Five minutes later and they’ve both finished their cakes. Taking her plate, Ziegler stacks it on top of hers and deposits it on top the bedside table, right next to the atrium where Tarantula is undergoing the last stages of its molting process. She notices that Ziegler never really looks at the atrium directly, instead fixating her sight onto the corner of the ceiling whenever she’s in danger of seeing Tarantula. Doctor Ziegler and her fear of spiders. There’s no shred of the naive, idealistic girl left in her, but fears never change, do they?

What was Amelie’s fears? Widowmaker can’t remember.

After the plates have been safely deposited and Tarantula studiously avoided, Ziegler sits back down on her spot, angled just so slightly toward Widowmaker. To facilitate easier conversation, Widowmaker presumes. She makes a note to ask Athena to requisite a chair for her room. She’s not planning on having guests often (or at all), but it will be useful just in case she does, and to change the lightbulb.

“I… we noticed that you left,” Ziegler says, still trying her best to not look at the atrium. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Yes; my accuracy has dropped 6.27% because your field agent called Tracer is incompetent at best and a moron at worst.

“I have been missing my shots,” Widowmaker says instead.

Ziegler nods. “I see. Any particular reason to that?”

“Tracer.”

“What about her?”

“She is what we call l'idiot du village.” Widowmaker pauses. “And a dégénéré,” she adds for good measure, remembering the drop kick and that new hobby Tracer has picked up called Body Block The Sniper Because I Can.

“Hmm.” Then: “Interesting.” 

The bloodlust she feels whenever she sees a trail of blue has been quite interesting, too.

Through the corner of her eye, she sees Ziegler nod again – more to herself this time – and hears her mutter something German under her breath. “Interesting indeed.” She claps Widowmaker on the shoulder and rises, straightening her coat. “Give me just a few moments. I’ll be right back.”

Just like that, she speed walks outside the room with a flourish of her coat and disappears around the doorway. There’s a sound of another door opening, a few thuds, German profanity, the scraping of wood against wood, and finally Ziegler’s back, dragging a chair behind her with a notepad and a pen in the other hand.

Widowmaker watches impassively as she plops the chair a few spaces away, facing Widowmaker and sits on it, crossing her legs. 

Opening the notepad to an empty page, she clicks on the pen and starts writing. “All right. I am ready,” she says, not looking up from her notepad. “Can you tell me more of why you feel that Lena is—” furious scribbling “-–the village idiot? Oh, and an imbecile, if I heard that correctly.”

Really. They’re doing this. Widowmaker’s been through this before. Usually they don’t do this in her room. They do this in a nice plush office, and she gets to sit on a reclining sofa with cuffs on and a few dozen guards outside.

She glances at Tarantula. It’s belly side up beside its old skin, rubbing its freshly molted legs against each other.

“I did not say imbecile,” she says. The blue sheen of its fur is beautiful. “I said degenerate.”

“Mmmhmm.” More scribbling, then Ziegler stops. From the corner of her eye, Widowmaker catches Ziegler tilting her head, brows knitted together. “Although I don’t quite understand the difference. A degenerate – an imbecile. All the same, no?”

“Different,” Widowmaker says, firm. 

Ziegler nods into her notebook. “Yes. Go on.”

“Consider the difference between a mongrel and a pure bred… a pug, perhaps.” Yes. Widowmaker has made this comparison many, many times in her head. That abhorrent earnestness, the way Tracer darts here and there – as if there are only two modes to her movement: on and off. With a broken off switch. How she’s always first at the dinner table. How she fights with the dwarf for the last scraps and always wins by virtue of speed alone. Those eyes.

Just a tail. She’s just missing a wagging tail. Widowmaker’s analogy would be perfect, then.

“A mongrel, by definition, is ugly– let me finish,” she says, just as Ziegler opens her mouth to interrupt, looking positively scandaled. “But their genetic diversity makes them healthy, robust. Intelligent. Now take a pug. Bred only for their appearance. Breathing problems so severe it is like…” She crinkles her nose. And the _smell_. Spiders are so much less hassle. “Having tiny fat man following you from behind–”

She’s interrupted by Ziegler’s snort, which soon devolves into a coughing fit. To mask her laughter, of course. What’s there to laugh at? It was a _brilliant_ metaphor. This woman has no taste in subtlety.

“Right. Ahem.” One last cough into her hand before resuming her scribbling, now Ziegler is looking at Widowmaker straight in the eye, apparently having mastered the art of writing without looking. “Sorry, I was just–” A snort. A cough. “Hayfever. Very bad this year around. Ah, you’re saying? That Lena is…” Another tilt of the head.

A long time ago, Widowmaker would have found that gesture endearing. A lifetime ago.

“A pug. Cute, but terribly inbred.”

Scribble. Scribble. All the while Ziegler’s staring at her with a somewhat absentminded, dopey smile. If assassination isn’t part of the Hobbies section in her resume, Widowmaker would have found it unnerving. But it is, so she merely taps her index and middle finger over her kneecap.

Tap tap tap. Tap. Tap tap.

“So, a pug,” Ziegler finally says, still with that smile.

Even with assassination in her list of Core Skills, Widowmaker is starting to feel uneasy. She feels like what she imagines her victims would feel (not that she knows – it’s purely speculation) before they walk into her trap.

“Yes. That’s what I said.”

“I didn’t know you found her cute.”

_What._

“I did not–”

She’s cut off by the sound of the pen clicking and the notepad closing, and Ziegler rises. “It’s fine,” she says, positively beaming. “Thank you for being so honest with me. We’ve made quite the progress today, haven’t we?”

“I–”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality, Amelie. Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul. If you’ll excuse me, I must… ah, attend to my duties. I will see you soon. Promise.”

And with that, Ziegler’s gone. Leaving Widowmaker alone with Tarantula, the dirty plates, and a chair.

She picks up the book she was reading and resumes the chapter. She agrees with the author. Prostitution should be a legal profession. It’s always easier to track down a target when their favourite establishments are legally required to have a paper trail for each one of their transactions.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Widowmaker waxes lyrical about good old fashioned murdering and Tracer headbutts people.

Widowmaker likes the sniping part of her job description more than the assassination part. Technically they both achieve the same thing: glassy eyes. The act of killing itself, the grand finale, however, is as different as it can be.

Consider sniping. A squeeze of the trigger. A millisecond– a second of travel time. One shot, one kill. Or two. Or three, if she gets lucky with lineups.

(Actually, her most kills with one shot was five– after that mission she’d bought a slice of cake from the nearest bakery and promptly ate it as soon as she went back to her room. Not because she suffered from Emotions, but because it felt like the right thing to do.)

Now consider assassination. Honeyed words, bare skin, blending in, standing out, concealed weapons. A stab to the heart, perhaps. A poison in the drink. So many variety. So many ways to go. Sometimes it even ends with no one dying. And those, Widowmaker feels, are the most disappointing missions of all.

She doesn’t like assassinations. It’s convoluted – too many ways where it can go wrong. With sniping, there are just two variables: her and her rifle. And the wind, but she’s too good to let something as simple as nature get in her way of a good shot. Still, despite all that, she finds herself in this very room, drinking this very wine, conversing with this very man, just because her accuracy has gone down a further 0.41% and that is _bad for business._

 _“_ Mmm. C'est magnifique,” she says, voice so low and so silky she’s practically purring. “It must be a…” a pause, and she starts counting down from five. Four. Wave hand like she’s trying to remember something on the tip of her tongue. Or trying to fan herself. Three. Two. Smile sheepishly (but sweetly). Apologise. Crank the accent up. “I am really sorry – I really don’t know much about wines… for example–”

As she gestures with her chin at the general direction of bar behind the man, she leans forward just a bit and places her hand on his knee. Just a bit. There’s a fine line between being a little tease and vulgar trash. Widowmaker is _never_ vulgar. His gaze slide down her cleavage, looking so mightily pleased with himself at what he imagines the night will contain.

Spoiler: It does not contain anything of his inside her.

 _She,_ however, will put something else entirely inside of him and it will feel like heaven. Ah, the thrill of a kill without an inbred dog constantly nipping at her ankles. How liberating. She is so, so _very_ determined to not let any(one)thing ruin this. Normal people might find themselves relaxing at home with a cup of hot tea and a good book. Widowmaker finds herself relaxing by doing some good old fashioned murdering. Find a job you enjoy and you’ll never work a day in your life, Amelie’s mother used to tell her. A wise woman with very wise words. Widowmaker has never worked a day in her life.

(Amelie, however, was stuck as a helpless housewife and that, Widowmaker decides, is a fate worse than death.)

“The bottles behind you?” she continues, voice so silkily husky she wonders if she’ll develop lymph nodes from the unnatural contortions of her vocal chords. She’s also exaggerated her accent so much _she_ has trouble understanding herself. She sounds like a caricature. Or a Canadian.

She slowly slides her hand up, up up his thigh. Watching the floor to ceiling mirror through the corner of her eye all the way. She’s smiling, he’s smiling. Her smile is: predatory, sly, deceitful. His smile is: not important enough to waste words on. He’s probably just horny. Regardless, she knows she looks stunning in this red dress, and that in his mind she’s already stark naked, spread eagle on his bed.

Ah well. Such is life.

“What about them?” His voice is raspy, soft. The voice men wears when they talk to their girlfriends on the phone in private.

He’s also talking more to her breasts than anything else, but she lets it slide.

“A liiitle bit dangerous, don’t you think?” She’s practically on top of him now, sitting on his lap, one hand cupping his cheek.

His hands are on the small of her back. She doesn’t need to guess where they’ll end up in a few seconds. “How so?” he asks, a bit crosseyed, like it’s taking everything in him to not faceplant right into her breasts.

“For example…”

“Yeeees?”

“This.” Staring straight into his eyes, she reaches back and grabs the empty wine bottle that they’ve just recently emptied by the neck. Points it skyward, then swings it down. Hard.

All that, in a split second. Her slow metabolism is her most favourite thing about herself. Alcohol tolerance through the roof. The Swedish dwarf has learned his lesson, and apparently so has this man.

Still with his legs between hers, she stands up and straightens her dress. Three just outside the door, six dispersed through the mansion. Easy, but she doesn’t have much time. The sounds of wine bottle against skull is loud, and she can already hear footsteps approaching.

Using the arm of the sofa as leverage, she jumps over the sofa and runs toward a dresser where she knows he hides an emergency gun in. Yes. It’s there. Third drawer down. Full chamber. _Magnifique_.

And just in time, too. The door bursts open and two men enter, not even intelligent enough to survey the room through a safe distance before barging in.

She drops both of them like flies and life, just for that moment, is quite beautiful. Striding to the doorway, she tosses the gun she’s been using and takes a fresh one from one of the men.

Now, where is the last one?

Ah, there he is, hidden behind a statue of something that looks like a cross between a sloth and a tapir.

She hums. Says in a sing song: “I seeee you…”

He opens fire and she sidesteps lightly to the left. The bullet whizzes past her harmlessly. What a lousy shot. She, however, is no amateur. That stupid man with his foot sticking out. The rule of a firefight is simple. Take potshots and never let anything you will miss stick out of cover.

What a disgrace to his profession. She supposes she’ll help him out. Aiming down the sights, she lines it with the foot, readies her finger on the trigger and–

–and Tracer whizzes across the room, careening head first into the man, knocking him hard enough against the statue to topple it. It crashes, and Widowmaker fights the urge to bury her face in her hands.

Right. Tracer has resorted to headbutts now. Why is Widowmaker not surprised.

“Cheers love! The cavalry’s heeee— whoa waaait, why aren’t you _purple?_ ”

As chunks of marble land near her feet, she sighs and wonders if the floating Omnic monk is right and her karma is indeed in dire need of cleansing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Widowmaker knees Tracer right in the crotch.

“Winston said… ammo… budget… hnnngkh!”

Talk about purple.

Tighter. Some shaking.

“I’m not talking about your barbaric, _inelegant_ drop kicks _._ How–” more shaking “–did. You. Find _me?”_

 _“_ Well–”

Before we continue, picture this scene:

A grand mansion. Some dead bodies. A priceless statue shattered into pieces. Next to them is a body with a bullet between its eyes and six broken ribs from being rammed by an uncommonly thick skull travelling at a velocity faster than time itself.

(Q: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

A: The object with the thicker skull wins.)

Widowmaker is on top of Tracer, hands on Tracer’s throat, knee between her legs. It all sounds very erotic, like the start of a badly acted porn. It doesn’t help that Widowmaker’s pupils have dilated so widely one cannot be faulted for mistaking it as lust. Tracer’s pupils are just as wide too, but that’s probably because she’s quite close to dying.

With the bodies around them, it’s more like a scene a quarter into a D-grade horror film than anything else, really. That, or a wrestling match, because Tracer’s slapping Widowmaker’s forearm with a gusto only the dying and the desperate can muster.

“Hnnngh can’t– can’t breeatheeeee–”

Amelie’s mother once said that problems eventually go away if you ignore them hard enough. Wise woman. Pity she kept ignoring her husband even as he strangled her to death. That was how her father had dealt with problems: eliminating them.

It’s terribly tempting if not for the fact that making an enemy out of two giant organisations might not be the smartest life plan – and as unfeeling as she is, strangling a puppy to death just seems utterly unnecessary. Unlike Reyes, she prefers to do it fast, efficient, and from a distance.

She relents her grip and Tracer sputters and coughs, wheezing. Widowmaker is still on top of her and she’s still on the floor, of course. She’s not getting off that easily. Just to make sure there’s no wiggle room, Widowmaker moves her hands from Tracer’s throat to her wrists, pinning her hands down besides her head.

Yes; Widowmaker knows what their position looks like. No; she’s not enjoying it. The logical thing to do would be to release Tracer and put a few continents between them before this goes any further.

She won’t.

That would be an admission of defeat, and Widowmaker _never_ loses. Shimada and his 36 against her 47 wins in Go can attest to that.

With newfound determination, she leans her face closer to Tracer’s – close enough to see the freckles on her nose, to see herself reflected on those eyes. “Who told you my location?”

Her voice is almost a hiss. It’s the voice she uses when she needs to lay down The Fear. Tracer squirms, hips lifting off the ground and almost bucking Widowmaker off. Feisty. Her struggling only excites Widowmaker further – she is a predator, after all, and Tracer is nothing more than her prey.

And to her credit, Tracer is handling this remarkably well. As soon as she’d stopped turning purple, that grin is back on her face and oh– Widowmaker does _not_ like that look.

“Y’know love, if you wanted me like this you only had to ask– in fact, I’m sure there are comfier places to pin me down against. Like the master bedroom for example.”

While she’s saying this, Tracer is also craning her neck upwards, and the next thing Widowmaker knows, their noses are almost touching and she can smell the mint in Tracer’s breath.

If any shiver runs down her spine, it’s only because she’s wearing a dress the size of a dishrag and nothing else. And if she feels suddenly hot, that’s most probably because Tracer’s chronal anchor is overheating.

But two? Yes. Two can play this game. No _one_ out-seduces Widowmaker, let alone a pup barely past her puberty.

“Don’t flatter yourself, little girl.” She speaks this right into Tracer’s ears, enunciating every syllable with deliberate slowness. The sharp hiss Tracer’s inadvertently makes is satisfying. Widowmaker is, how do they say it in English? Ah yes. Flipping the tables. 

She shifts forward, lowering herself further and further until their bodies touch. Tracer is warm, so warm. “Maybe you should run back home and play with that gamer friend of yours, hmm? Let the _adult_ do her job.” _For once._

“Oh you–!” Tracer starts. Then stops. Remains silent.

Tables. Flipped.

“What’s the matter, chérie? Cat got your tongue?”

“No. Um…”

There’s an odd tone to Tracer’s words. Like she’s holding something back, or ate bad food. Widowmaker straightens her elbows to give herself clearance, and looks down at Tracer. Tracer’s avoiding her gaze, looking sideways at the body next to them instead. She’s also started to squirm again, and Widowmaker’s hands are nowhere near her throat. Either she’s emulating a worm, or she did eat something bad. Widowmaker’s seen her eat before. Either that, or head trauma from before. It also explains why she hasn’t blinked away and/or rewound time.

It’s not like she particularly cares if Tracer has food poisoning and/or concussion, but she does care about being the primary suspect should Tracer keel over and die here. Her concern only stems from wanting to protect herself from being punched to death by an angry ape than anything else.

“Hey. Look at me,” Widowmaker says, taking her hand off Tracer’s wrist. Cupping the sides of Tracer’s jaw between her index finger and thumb, she gently applies enough force to make Tracer look at her. But even then, she can’t seem to get Tracer to meet her eyes. “What’s the matter?”

Nothing. Just Widowmaker looking at Tracer looking at the exit hole on the corpse’s temple.

“Listen,” Widowmaker says again, “if there is something wrong with you, you will tell me right now _._ Understand? I will not have you die on–”

“It’s your knee! Your bloody knee, Widowmaker!”

Widowmaker blinks. Her knee? What does she mean her _knee?_

Of course, a moment later her question is answered, and she dearly, dearly wishes she has Tracer’s ability to rewind time, or even one of Ziegler’s potent, memory altering drug.

(Q: Why is Tracer acting strange?

A: Because she just came.)

Widowmaker blinks.

“Did you– just.”

“I did _not!”_ Tracer all but shouts, face beet red. Either it’s because she’s embarrassed, or because she just. Well. Traumatised Widowmaker for life. War zones do not hold a candle to this… this thing. She’s not sure what to call it. She’s always been brilliant in bed, but this? Even for her this is… well. This.

“…so that was not a long, drawn out moan I just heard?”

“It’s not my bloody fault your knee was so far up my crotch it was pretty much _inside_ me! And I _am_ sensitive and it’s a jolly good thing, all right!”

“Yes, it is,” Widowmaker says, not quite sure what she’s agreeing to. “Do you want to—”

“I think I’ll just–”

Silence.

She slowly, slowly lets go of Tracer’s wrists, lifts the leg that’s between Tracer’s thighs and very gingerly rises to stand a safe distance away from someone she’s sure she had unintentionally violated.

She doesn’t know how to feel about that. Her training has never prepared her for this.

Gesturing at Tracer who’s now sitting cross legged while rubbing her wrists, she says, “you first.”

“I was going to suggest that I should… y’know,” Tracer says to the floor. “Blink away. Rewind time a bit. Go home and get bloody pissed over a few dozen pints of Guiness. Pretend this didn’t just happen. Kill myself.”

Widowmaker nods. “Perhaps you should.” Again, she’s not quite sure which part of Tracer’s proposed actions she was agreeing to. She would like a Guiness (or a hundred) herself, too.

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to blink away now.”

“Okay.”

“And then I’m going to rewind time. It only goes back a few seconds, but I feel like I should.”

“A few seconds ago you were–”

“–think I’ll just teleport, then.”

“Yes. You do that.”

“This didn’t happen.”

“No. It didn’t.”

“You’ll leave it out of your report, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Cheers. Uh. Bye then.”

“Bye.”

Tracer gives a final nod to the floor, and Widowmaker is alone once again. She remembers that the man has quite an impressive collection of alcohol in his bar. High alcohol tolerance or not, she’s determined to spend the night sitting at that bar. If her liver should die tomorrow, so be it. She’ll just request a new one from Ziegler.

And speaking of Ziegler? Well, Widowmaker will just have to deal with her tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Widowmaker grapples people and contemplates on punching an angel.

“Let me in,” Widowmaker says to the blindingly pink mech.

“No can do, it’s at full capacity,” the mech says with a dismissive wave.

Widowmaker looks up, squinting against the morning sun. Why is everything so _bright_ today?  She much prefers Volskaya over Gibraltar. Too much sun.

Her head hurts.

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna head out. Got some noobs to crush.”

“I do mind.”

“Tough luck.”

“Fine.”

Leaning against a pillar, Widowmaker crosses her arms and surveys the mech as it starts its flight preparation. First booster. Second booster. Slow ascent. A metre. Two metres. There it is.

 _Plonk_.

And just like that, the mech comes back crashing into the ground with a reverberating thud. Widowmaker idly wonders about its weight as it looks left, right, up, before its cockpit opens and the girl crawls out.

With half of her body outside the cockpit – suspended by her legs, she turns and scowls alternately between Widowmaker, the pillar her grappling hook’s wrapped against, and her mech. “That was _sooooooo_ not nice.”

Widowmaker shrugs. “I want in.”

“Or?”

“Or you stay here.”

“Psssh.” The girl waves her arms. She must have brilliant lower body strength to suspend herself like that. “I could just get out and unhook it myself, y’know.”

“With _those_ arms?” Widowmaker nearly scoffs. She doesn’t mean it to be insulting – merely stating a fact. That girl really does have stick arms. Probably the size of a pencil. She’s surprised the girl can lift up a feather, let alone a pistol.

“Like your arms are any better!”

“Ah well.” Another shrug. “C’est la vie.”

They stare at each other for what seems like minutes before the girl lets out a loud hmph! and clambers back into the cockpit. “FINE! But don’t complain about it being too tight!”

First triumph of the day. Widowmaker smirks, then starts the process of unwrapping her grappling hook off the pillar.

* * *

‘Very tight’ is a massive understatement.

The girl is pretty much sprawled on top of Widowmaker, awkwardly trying to control mech with her calves propped on Widowmaker’s shoulders and her backside, well, let’s just say Widowmaker has memorised all of its contours.

The girl huffs. “Told ya it’ll be tight.”

“I am not complaining,” Widowmaker says, craning her neck as far back as she can, back flush against the end of the cockpit, eyes fixated on the ceiling.

“Yeah well I am! I mean we’re pretty much on second… or third? Base and I bet you don’t even know my name.”

Well, she’s right. About not knowing her name. Widowmaker’s heard it before, but she doesn’t make a habit to commit anything into her memory unless it’s something she’s tasked to kill. She’s never had to kill this girl. It would be rude, however, to not know the name of the only person separating her from the air, and the vast expanses of the ocean below. No land in sight. She doubts she can swim to the nearest landmass without drowning. Not that she has any particular qualms about dying.

“I do know your name,” Widowmaker says, trying hard to recall the last time she hears someone call this girl. When was that? Ah yes. Anubis. By that Chinese girl who seems to be friends with _everyone_. If there’s anything Widowmaker hates more than losing, it’s exaggerated friendliness. From her experience, the line between friendliness and getting stabbed in the back is extremely thin. Just ask Amelie’s dead husband.

“Oh yeah? And what’s that huh?”

There’s a H in it. And an A. And an N. And the closest name she can think of is: “Hannah.”

Accidentally or not so accidentally, Hannah shifts her legs and a sharp, bony knee lands on Widowmaker’s stomach. Involuntarily letting out a small grunt, Widowmaker immediately turns her head to the left to avoid Hannah’s precariously close butt. The butt moves away again and Widowmaker takes a slow, deep breath.

It reminds her a little too much of that… situation with Tracer, and that sets a rolling wave in her stomach. Some sort of feeling she can’t identify. Nausea, perhaps. Yes. Definitely nausea. She is definitely not getting turned on thinking about that situation while staring at everything Hannah has to offer. She wonders how someone can move in a suit so tight.

“Bzzzt! Wrong!”

“Hansel?”

“Nuuuup.”

“Hancock.”

She can’t see Hannah(?)’s expression, but she can almost hear and feel the stunned silence.

“…Wow, Widowmaker. _Wow._ ”

“I’m not good with English names.”

“I’m not English!”

“I see that.”

Silence.

“…you’re hopeless.”

“It would be easier if you just told me your name,” Widowmaker says. Her shoulders are getting sore from supporting Hannah(?)’s legs.

“It’s Hana Song. H-A-N-A. Ha…Na. Get it?”

“Hannah.”

“HANA!”

“Hana.”

A stream of Korean under Hana’s breath. Something obscene, would be Widowmaker’s guess.

“Geez. Talking to you is like talking to a massive brick wall. Worst. Hitchhiker. Ever. You’re like— like—” She pauses. Probably trying to grasp for a metaphor. “A poodle. Super dumb and super rude. Seriously. I’ve been bitten by dogs twice, and both times they’re poodles. Maybe they’re just racist or something.”

She huffs, and Widowmaker wonders if she should correct Hana. Poodles are, after all, one of the most intelligent dog breeds. Very unlike a pug. “They are actually very intelligent dogs.”

“What is?”

“Poodles.”

A scoff. “Riiiight.”

“You can Google it.”

Hana’s leg shifts, resting on Widowmaker’s trapezius. She knows from previous experience that nudging it aside only makes Hana more determined to accidentally hit her other pain points. So she stays still. She’s endured worse. Like Tracer.

“I don’t believe you. Next you’re gonna tell me that pugs aren’t cute.”

“They are–” and Widowmaker catches herself before she says anything else. She’s learnt her lesson. Thank you, Ziegler. “How long to go?”

“Fifteen minutes. Thirty if you keep crowding me.”

“There’s only so much space in this cockpit. I cannot make myself smaller.”

“Well maybe you should lose weight, then.”

Okay that–

Right. Widowmaker is _definitely_ not responding that to that. Who ever thought that hiring a twelve year old _professional_ gamer would be anything but a terrible idea?

 

* * *

 

 

An hour later, they’ve finally arrived. Half past noon. Hana, Widowmaker decides, is utterly terrible at estimation.

“WORST. HITCHHIKER. EVER,” the mech says before stomping off, flying into the distance, and detonating itself.

Widowmaker watches as ant-sized figures scatter from the core of the explosion just before another pink mech falls from the sky.

Where did it come from?

Talk about budget.

Alas, she’s no accountant, and with her _stellar_ accuracy (and it will remain so, as long as she stays clear of a certain pesky pup), it won’t be her head on the chopping block. She’s safe (for now), and she intends for it to stay that way.

But first–

Aiming through the sights of her rifle, she gives a poor shmuck a double tap. A kill is always the best way to start a day. Apparently the sound of her shots are drawing attention from his friends, but it doesn’t matter. She’s already half the map away, grappling from building to building with abandon.

It’s like swings, but for adults.

It doesn’t take long for her to spot her target. The glowing river of yellow nanobots following an armoured, giant of a man is a dead giveaway, and she puts it into her to-do list to lecture Ziegler about _subtlety_. No one sane would wear a brilliant white suit with the glowing, gaudy wings and halo in a battlefield.

Then again, Ziegler is entirely too obsessed with death and reanimation to be entirely there. She decides to wipe that item off her to-do list, and readies her grappling hook.

_Plonk!_

And just like that, she feels herself pulled right into Ziegler, hitting Ziegler on her very armoured back with her chest.

“Hngh!” exclaims Ziegler, probably surprised at having someone crash land into her.

“Ugh,” grunts Widowmaker in return, probably having broken a rib or two.

How _heavy_ is that valkyrie suit?

Not important. She should unhook–

“FOLLOW ME TO GLORY!”

And whatever plan she has is interrupted by the giant’s decision to leave his healer behind and charge into a fray of grunts, smashing them against the wall and toppling the building. And the building behind it. And another building behind that building.

If she were the owner of the buildings, she would sue the contractors for shoddy craftmanship. And then sue Overwatch for repair damages.

“Well,” Ziegler says, and Widowmaker feels the movement of Ziegler’s shoulder blades through her chest as she shrugs, “I’m used to being left alone. It’s the life of a support, I presume.”

“I see,” says Widowmaker.

“Would you mind untangling yourself, please? As much as I enjoy your affectionate gestures, it’s a bit distracting in battle, ja?”

Being the consummate professional that she is, Widowmaker ignores Ziegler’s inappropriate flirty battlefield comment and goes to work in unhooking her grapple from the Valkyrie suit.

For a few awkward moments, they’re glued together in the middle of a warzone. It’s a few, vulnerable moments more than Widowmaker would have liked, and Ziegler’s wings are hard and have the tendency to flap around and hit Widowmaker on the sides of her head.

Finally, _finally_ the grapple comes off and Widowmaker exhales. “You’re free.”

“Danke,” says Ziegler, flexing her shoulders before turning around to face Widowmaker. “Now, what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I–”

“RYUU GA WAGA TEKI O KURAU!”

Before she can resume her sentence, Ziegler takes her by the elbow and leads her toward a structure that’s missing most of the things that would make a structure. Just as they step in, a giant, red dragon floats almost lackadaisically across the street they’ve just vacated.

Does that thing ever hit anything?

“And you were saying…?”

Widowmaker is still watching the tail of the dragon float by when Ziegler speaks.

How can anyone be hit with that thing? What is the point of that? What _is_ that?

“I was–” The dragon finally disappears, and Widowmaker snaps her attention back to Ziegler. Somewhere, something explodes and the ground shakes. Ziegler is just standing there with that smile, looking like the personification of a death obsessed lunatic. She’s heard the stories from Reyes. “You were the one who sent Tracer after me.” Giving up on subtlety in fear of having another battleshout interrupt her, Widowmaker goes straight for the kill.

It’s not an erroneous guess.

Slip up and mistakenly call someone… _cute_ in front of Ziegler and proceed to have that someone show up in all of her missions like a puppy with separation anxiety nipping at her heels?

Yes. She can see Ziegler’s mark on it. No one else has the energy and the drive to _meddle_ so much in another person’s affairs. No one but Ziegler.

(Once again, she’s heard Reyes’s stories, and they are chilling.)

“Mhmm.” There it goes again. That tilt of the head that was once endearing. “I do not remember doing that – perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else?”

And that smile.

It was then that Widowmaker wonders if Talon will take her back, and what facet of her personality she’ll have to sacrifice to make that happen.

Or maybe she can just punch Ziegler with the butt of her rifle. Hmm. Decisions. Decisions.


End file.
